Putting together the 3D CAD model of a General Electric has been complex but straightforward… but hammering the 2D diagrams made from it into shape has proven a bit challenging. Most of the 2D work is done in an ancient version of AutoCAD, but there was something about the diagram (created in Rhino 3D) that caused ACAD to either lock up or crash. So finalizing the diagram has been done in Rhino, which means the diagrams will look a little different.

An integral part of UNH’s mission is to continue to build an inclusive learning community, and the first step toward our goal is an awareness of any bias in our daily language. As we begin to understand bias, we explore the truths of hierarchy and oppression. When we free ourselves of bias, we are thus affirming identities that differ from our own. When we do not affirm another person’s identity, we are characterizing an individual as “less than” or “other”. This makes them invisible, and for some, it feels like a form of violence.

This guide is meant to invite inclusive excellence in our campus community. Each step of inclusion moves us closer to a full democracy. The text was prepared for faculty, staff and students of the UNH community to encourage the full range of contributions that we offer as individuals and members of various groups. The guide presents practical revisions in our common usage that can make a difference and break barriers relating to diversity.

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Micro-assault, verbal attack

Example: “Dogs smell funny” to a blind person using a guide dog.

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Micro-invalidation, degrading a person’s wholeness through making false assumptions about the other’s ability, causing a sense of invalidation.

Example: “The new international student is having language challenges.” (More appropriately, we would say that the new international student is concentrating on learning a new language.)

The power output of this laser is said to be 1,000 times that of the entire worlds electrical consumption. The way it works is to concentrate all the energy of the shot into a single burst lasting a ridiculously short period… one picosecond. The total energy is only a few hundred joules.

The goal is to raise the power to 10 petawatts, or 10 quadrillion watts.

In short: it’s a laser that focuses a nanosecond pulse in front of a target to cause the air to superheat into a ball of plasma and go BANG, at 130 decibels. So far the ranges tested have been short; development is needed to given the system useful range of 100 meters.

Expect to see this used not so much by the military, but by militarized police forces looking for a way to knock protestors off their feet.

Apparently one Sam Dubuse (reportedly father of *at* *least* 20 children) was stopped by police officer Ray Tensing. From there it gets fuzzy and contradictory. A claim is that Tensing wound up getting dragged by Dubose’s car. Whatever happened, Dubose was shot dead by Tensing; reports here and there say that Dubose got his face blown off (if this is true, it might indicate that he got shot in the back of the head). Tensing was wearing a body camera which recorded it. The video has not been made public yet, but the universal opinion of those who have seen it can be summed up with “Oh, F……”

Not sure really what the problem is. It might be that it shows the officer doing something Seriously Wrong. Or it might show substantial gore. Or it might be both. In any event, the local government is apparently trying to hold off riots.

Highly steeped in the hypothetical, but it looks like a material made from the right amounts of hafnium, nitrogen, and carbon (HfN0.38C0.51) would have a melting point of 4,400 kelvin = 7,460 F. No data yet on the mechanical properties. If it’s a powder, that’s not so helpful, but if it’s a reasonably strong solid, it’d be handy for heat shields and the like. It’d be really nice if this could be used to make rocket engines.

So, a few days ago news broke that a famous, and beloved, male lion in Zimbabwe had been killed by a trophy hunter. At first the hunter was reported to be a mysterious Spanish hunter, but now it has been claimed to be a rich dentist from Minnesota. A guy who plunked down $55 large for the utter joy of hunting a lion that, reportedly, was reasonably friendly with people.

Full disclosure: in general I’m fine with hunting and fishing and such. I eat as much meat as I can. But trophy hunting fills me with a distinct uncomfortableness. You want to hang a deer head on your wall? Well, OK, we’ve got lots of deer. But a *lion?* The world isn’t exactly overloaded with those. Plus… lions are a lot higher up the ladder than deer and gazelle and the like.

Well, beyond the “dude, why?” aspect of hunting a lion, it turns out that the hunt itself was apparently carried out illegally in several ways:

1) It was done at night, which was illegal

2) It was illegal to hunt the lion on the park the lion was in… so they tied a dead animal to a car and lured it out of the park, then shot it with a bow and arrow (or crossbow).

3) The lion had a GPS collar, which they removed and attempted to destroy

Well, the internet has discovered the guy and has begun the inevitable.

One of the last, if not the last, chapters in my Nuclear Pulse Propulsion book will be on NPP in popular culture. Mostly, of course, this means nuclear pulse spacecraft in science fiction… short stories, novels, TV, movies. These vehicles will get layout diagrams just like the non-fiction concepts.

With designs that are complex or difficult to really work out – which covers just about all fictional designs – I’ve found that it is a whole lot easier to build the vehicle as a 3D CAD model and then convert that into a 2D diagram. A bonus of doing it this way is that perspective views are also possible. So because why not, here are some of the fictional NPP’s that will appear in the book, along with the current status list for NPP diagrams (green means the diagram is done, yellow means it’s in progress, red means I haven’t started or haven’t gone beyond preliminary scribble). Some of the fictional designs, such as the “Orion Shall Rise” and the Tycho were drawn in 2D right from the get-go. Currently being pieced together is the Archangel Michael. It is a bit different from the usual depiction in a number of ways, most obvious being the straight shock absorbers. I understand the reasoning behind those designs that use angled and pivoting shocks to allow the pusher “dome” to swing with respect to the rest of the ship… but I still don’t agree that that’s a good engineering solution. Once you get the dome swinging, getting it to *stop* is going to be a friggen nightmare, especially if the ship remains under thrust. The dynamics of a spring system like this with that many degrees of freedom would be massively complex, never mind the actual mechanics. Oh well. Anyway, my “Michael” is still far from finished. The interior is only roughly sketched out, armament is currently rough and incomplete and secondary payloads need a lot of work.

In the final book, these fictional designs will get not only orthogonal views, but also to greater or lesser degrees “rationalization.” Some designs I can’t honestly make any real sense of, and thus they’ll get the bare bones. Some I can dream up a fair bit of (essentially fan fiction) explanation for, so they’ll get further detail work.

A video is making the internet rounds that appears to be one thing that turns into another. The first thing: a model is being filmed on a Miami beach for a “fashion shoot.” In the process of this, a boat trundles up to the shore behind the model; the camerawoman turns off the camera because, of course, that’s not the background she wanted. But she turns the camera back on when the invasion force spills off the boat and starts sprinting up the beach. It *appears* that the boat was unloading a fresh supply of illegal aliens.

Another rare piece of early Dyna Soar color art. This one shows the Dyna Soar heading to space atop the centaur upper stage of an Atlas booster. And if you think you are seeing corrugations on the back of the spaceplane, you are correct. At this stage in the design process the Dyna Soar *did* […]

So the media is currently ulcerating over Trump suggesting that he’d like to see NFL owners fire players who decide to disrespect the US flag & anthem before games. Here’s the thing: 1: It’s the players right to disrespect the flag, the anthem, the US. 2: It’s any citizens right to say that he’d like […]

Yes, I’ve posted these before. But I feel it’s important for everyone to maintain a proper level of understanding of the encabulator, the turbo-encabulator and the retro-encabulator. And of course once you have an encabulator, you’ll need to diagnose it from time to time: There have of course been advances in the field […]

Argh. Facebook is not my favorite thing. But, apparently, it’s where all the cool kids hang out, so the Aerospace Projects Review Facebook page that I cobbled together years ago, I’ve started posting things in again. One of the weird things about Facebook is that you (apparently) can’t see a page unless you are signed […]

Oh, boy! Mayhem! A Group Of 62 Catholics Has Accused The Pope Of Spreading Heresy Not being Catholic, I have no dog in this fight. Still, it’s always entertaining when religious leaders tell other religious leaders they’re wrong. Wacky hijinks often ensue.

So, Star Trek Discovery plopped onto the airwaves tonight. My review: It was certainly pretty, but all those visuals were spoiled by a whole lot of “WTF am I looking at?” Especially with the “Klingons” who bore almost no relationship to any prior iteration of the Klingons, in biology, aesthetics or culture. Heck, they even […]

… in a drone: This is pretty much exactly the sort of footage that would have been impossible to get prior to the current generation of drones. So just imagine what people will be able to film once the batteries for drones are actually *good,* with the power and energy density of chemical fuels like […]

OK, let’s say your town is plagued by a transdimensional monster that takes the form of a killer psychotic clown. Who would be the best person to try to destroy this menace? That’s right, the goddamn Batman: And because why not: Bill Nye just walked into our elevator while I was snap chatting.. pic.twitter.com/LwCOITAEft […]

A deli worker was attacked, someone came across the counter and slashed at him with a knife. He fought back with a knife of his own, and the other guy got the worse of it. So, what happened? Did the city of New York throw the deli worker a ticker tape parade? Give him the […]